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Full Description
In one of the most charming works to survive from classical antiquity, Xenophon's Symposium depicts an amiable evening of wine, entertainment, and conversation shared by Socrates, and a few of his associates, with certain Athenian gentlemen who are gathered to honor a young man for his recent victory in the Panathenaic games. The subtle playfulness which characterizes the animated discussions conceals a light-hearted, yet surprisingly philosophical inquiry regarding the rival claims of virtue, articulated and defended by the Socratics and gentlemen to establish the praiseworthiness and excellence of their competing ways of life. Gentlemanliness, taken as an admired political virtue, and philosophy, as pursuit of wisdom and self-sufficiency, emerge as contested ideas about what constitutes the path to human happiness, especially in response to the beautiful and its compelling arousal of erotic desire in the body and soul.
Offering a comprehensive account and interpretation of the Symposium, this book follows the speeches and action of the dialogue through its many twists and turns, from beginning to end, with particular attention to the place of rhetoric in the argument of the work as a whole. Thus, Xenophon's Socratic Rhetoric examines foundational aspects of the philosophic life manifest in the words as well as deeds of Socrates in this dialogue--starting from an original reading of the opening scene as a harbinger of the competition in wisdom that occurs over the course of the symposium, and concluding with a provocative consideration of conjugal erotics as the continuation and completion of the Socratic logos about the role of love in guiding human beings toward virtue and happiness.
Contents
Introduction: Opening Reflections
Part I: Xenophon's Symposium in Context
Chapter 1: Situating the Dialogue: Athenian Competitions
Chapter 2: Setting the Stage: Sophistry versus Philosophy
Chapter 3: The Banquet Begins: Rule and the Symposium
Chapter 4: Rival Ways of Life: ?a?????a??a and Virtue
Part II: Sympotic Entertainments
Chapter 5: Display Speeches and the Promise of Wisdom
Chapter 6: Defense Speeches and the Socratic Way of Life
Chapter 7: Socratic Moderation in Pursuit of the Beautiful
Part III: Socratic Rhetoric in the Symposium
Chapter 8: Refutations, Accusations, and Education
Chapter 9: Digression, Reconciliation, and Restoration
Chapter 10 : Educating Gentlemen and Moderating Eros
Chapter 11 : Performative Rhetoric and Conjugal Erotics
Conclusion: Xenophon's Socrates and Political Philosophy
